9/11: One Day in America 1x4

1. Do you want me to start?

2. Absolutely.

3. Alright, I'd like to start this way.

4. About a year after 9/11,

5. I got a telephone call from

6. a professional writer and he was writing

7. a story about, um, 9/11.

8. He was also at the Marriott Hotel,

9. Three World Trade Center in New York, on 9/11,

10. and had been staying there.

11. And he asked that, uh, I give him an interview and I did

12. and I told him the—the story I'm about to tell you.

13. And, at the end of the story he said to me, he said,

14. "Frank, I don't know if you realize this

15. but there are only 14 people who, uh,

16. survived the collapse of both

17. buildings on 9/11 and you're one of the 14 people."

18. Now, as I tell the story, you may say to yourself,

19. I made incredibly bad choices that day,

20. or you may say I was a very fortunate person.

21. You can judge for yourself which are the, uh, reasons

22. why I survived that day.

23. Well, let me take you back, uh,

24. I am a lawyer, I had a case that was pending

25. in the United States District Court,

26. very big case, and a very important case.

27. I had a suite of rooms in the, uh, Marriott Hotel,

28. on the 19th floor.

29. The hotel was physically connected to the North Tower

30. and in essence, I had set up a war room for the trial in that, uh, suite,

31. and I had boxes all over the place and materials,

32. getting ready for the trial.

33. I was in bed, and I, suddenly I heard a huge bang

34. and I went, instinctively, went to the windows,

35. I opened the drapes,

36. I looked outside

37. and now I could see fire balls falling

38. into the street.

39. I was at the apex of my career at that time and

40. the thought occurred to me that,

41. "If I leave this room with all my papers,

42. I may not be able to get back into this room

43. and I have a trial that's coming up.

44. I need these papers. I've got to get them out."

45. And so, I decided,

46. uh, that the most important thing for me,

47. at that point, was to collect those papers,

48. put them back in the boxes,

49. put them in the, uh, litigation bags

50. and get them out of the hotel now.

51. And I was thinking, "I wonder if a bellman's

52. still downstairs who can help me?"

53. And, as I was reaching for the phone,

54. the building shuddered and I looked out the window

55. and I could see, falling out of the sky,

56. concrete and steel,

57. going right past the window,

58. as if it were a curtain at a theatre, falling.

59. And, a day which was a bright, sunny, uh,

60. late summer day, turned pitch black.

61. I realized that these may be

62. the final moments of my life.

63. Um...

64. Then I thought, uh,

65. "You know, uh, I'm never gonna see my daughter get married,"

66. and then I thought about my, uh, my parents,

67. and I said to myself,

68. "I hope I've lived the kind

69. of life that my parents can be proud of."

70. Everybody alright?

71. How's the way out of here?

72. Yep.

73. I got something, come on guys.

74. Go!

75. There's still nobody.

76. We were in the lobby of the North Tower,

77. and the whole area goes completely dark.

78. You can't see the hand in front of your face.

79. Let's get some lights.

80. And I got on my radio and I said,

81. "Command to all units in Tower One,

82. evacuate the building."

83. Command one?

84. Command post in Tower One.

85. All units.

86. Evacuate the building.

87. Command post to all units.

88. Command post to all units.

89. Let's go, what floor?

90. We came in this way, no?

91. No, we came in the other way, over there.

92. Let's go!

93. I made the evacuation order...

94. and then I felt somebody at my feet.

95. I grabbed the flashlight and as I shined the flashlight,

96. I saw the white collar of our chaplain,

97. he was lying at the floor, at my feet.

98. Hey guys, yeah, we need a hand here.

99. Hey guys, come back down!

100. Hey, we need a, guys, we're gonna take this.

101. So, I removed his white collar,

102. I checked for a pulse and I couldn't find one.

103. And I knew at that point, that, um, part of the building

104. had to, had to hit him and he was gone.

105. So, Chief Hayden said, "We're gonna carry him out."

106. This way.

107. Off the escalator right here.

108. Come on. Okay? Right, here.

109. You okay? Yeah.

110. Alright, we got four guys.

111. Is this the way? Do you know the building?

112. I'll find a way out.

113. Let's go, what floor?

114. Can we get out here?

115. Try and go across.

116. The front door is completely blocked.

117. Is it? Are we gonna come back for them?

118. Totally blocked. Totally?

119. We gotta go, we gotta go out there.

120. At that point all I heard on the radio was static.

121. I think everybody was trying to talk at the same time,

122. it was impossible to receive,

123. or to transmit, any message at that moment.

124. This is the condition of my building,

125. firemen are coming in.

126. Janey, try on your cell.

127. It doesn't work.

128. Yeah, hello hold on, one second,

129. I have your husband here, okay?

130. Can you get an outside line "cause I gotta call somebody

131. to tell "em I'm alive.

132. Hello? Hello? I'm alright.

133. I don't believe it. Everybody, everybody's dead, Hope.

134. I'll call you back.

135. Oh, my God.

136. As he said, everybody's dead.

137. They're going back out.

138. Nice and slow. Just go nice and slow.

139. Ultimately, the building stopped shaking

140. and I was still in the room.

141. I, I was astonished that I was still alive and, uh,

142. I raced for the door.

143. I opened the door and looked down the hallway,

144. it was pitch black.

145. Our job was to help search

146. and evacuate the Marriott Hotel.

147. After the first tower collapsed,

148. we were in the hotel, we couldn't see,

149. we couldn't barely breath and I—I...

150. it was like, literally like lights out.

151. And, uh, as the dust settled,

152. in front of us was basically

153. a wall of debris from left side of the hallway,

154. right side of the hallway, from floor to ceiling

155. and we started calling out for the other guys and I said,

156. "I'm okay, are you okay?

157. Who's okay?" You know, like that kind of thing

158. and then we heard two more,

159. I'm okay's, where we should've heard three.

160. There was no...

161. His name was, Ruben Correa, was part of our team

162. and, uh, we were screaming at the top of our lungs,

163. trying radios, the radios were just full of chatter

164. and it was just practically useless.

165. And, uh, it was pretty frantic when we couldn't find Ruben.

166. Uh...

167. Finding him, that's all, that's all you wanted to do.

168. I went down the fire staircase,

169. I don't know why, but I yelled out,

170. "Is anyone there?"

171. And I heard voices

172. from below yelling up and saying,

173. "Yeah, we're here, we're on the third-floor landing,

174. but we can't get down because the staircase

175. has collapsed down to the ground."

176. And I got enough debris moved so that I was able to

177. get through to the third-floor landing.

178. At this point, we are all covered,

179. literally covered, in dirt,

180. uh, dust, debris,

181. and in, literally,

182. in the door jam of the staircase,

183. of the fire staircase,

184. there was a fireman.

185. I know now that that fireman was Jeff Johnson.

186. We started hearing voices and, uh,

187. they were on floors below us.

188. I made my way down and that's where I ran into three gentlemen,

189. Frank Razzano and the two other people.

190. We didn't know this but the South Tower had collapsed

191. and taken out the entire middle of the Marriott Hotel.

192. There was a steel beam that was wedged

193. in the fire staircase.

194. There was this huge hole in the wall.

195. He got on that beam and shimmied down

196. the beam to the ledge, looked up at us, and said,

197. "Everyone out in the street is dead.

198. The policeman are dead. The firemen are dead."

199. He says, "Nobody is coming to save us.

200. If we're gonna get out of this building,

201. we have to get out of this building on our own."

202. I said, "Everybody listen,

203. follow me, do what you want but I'm getting out."

204. And they all agreed, whatever I was gonna do,

205. they were going to do.

206. I didn't ask "em their names, or anything like that,

207. we checked and they were okay,

208. so then they became part of our group and we—

209. we proceeded down from there.

210. We're in the back of the ambulance,

211. where usually you only have three people,

212. we have seven.

213. The wind is almost like a cyclone we're in right now.

214. It was dark, they were screaming,

215. the people on the floor,

216. I said to them, the first thing,

217. "We're gonna be okay, you know?"

218. So I put the lights on and I said,

219. "We're gonna be fine, we're gonna be okay.

220. They're gonna find us here.

221. We'll be alright."

222. But, meanwhile, I say to myself in my mind,

223. "Jimmie, this is bad, you know?

224. This is bad, we might not, uh, make it outta here."

225. It felt like, um, someone was putting

226. a hot sock down your throat.

227. This air was heated and intensified

228. and since it was cement, it was so dry

229. that it just felt like something was clogging your throat,

230. to the put that you can't breathe no more.

231. So, excuse me, so I say to myself,

232. "What can I do? I have to improvise."

233. So I tell them, "I'm turning on the oxygen,"

234. and I said, "We're gonna do like skin divers do,

235. we're gonna buddy breathe."

236. I said, "You take it for a little bit,

237. pass it onto the next person,

238. you get a little more, keep passing it around."

239. I said, "If we can get out now,

240. it's the time to get out."

241. When we came out, it was silence.

242. There was no-one calling for anybody.

243. Everybody was gone.

244. Almost like the end of the world.

245. And then I realized, when I got out of the ambulance,

246. there's one of us missing.

247. My partner, Marvin, wasn't with me.

248. And I didn't have Marvin in the ambulance,

249. I thought he was dead then.

250. I worked with him every Tuesday and we worked for a

251. couple of years together...

252. and when you sit that close to another person,

253. you start knowing them better than

254. you know your own wife.

255. Just a truly good person, uh, good hearted,

256. the big part is working with a partner like, Marvin, is,

257. after you have a bad call,

258. you talk to him about it, or he would talk to me about

259. how he felt and that's a true friend.

260. It's not a partner no more, it's family.

261. I had to know for sure if, if Marvin made it or not.

262. I had to find him.

263. Battalion one to Division one.

264. Battalion one to Division one.

265. Battalion one to Division one.

266. We had no idea that a building just collapsed.

267. But we needed to find a way out

268. and I knew there was a passageway

269. to the World Financial Center, which was across the street.

270. And I can remember a cold chill running down my spine.

271. And couldn't comprehend what I was seeing.

272. Now, we got everybody out the lobby.

273. And we went to the corner opposite

274. One World Trade Center,

275. and we started to regroup.

276. In the hotel lobby,

277. we've got about 12.

278. That's trapped in the lobby?

279. Yeah, of the hotel. Okay.

280. There might be, all firemen I know are out.

281. What about in Tower One,

282. we have people up on the upper floors.

283. I have no idea.

284. This is what is coming over our radio,

285. get outta the area, the second tower is coming down.

286. They tell you the second tower is coming down?

287. Yes, it's about to collapse.

288. Out of the area.

289. Joe, Joe.

290. Joe!

291. Keep everybody up and respond to central please.

292. As we were trying to just regroup,

293. somebody yelled that the other building could collapse.

294. I looked up and then...

295. we heard another loud rumble.

296. Oh, my God!

297. And I was with, Jules, and he had his camera

298. and I remember him ducking behind a small truck.

299. I jumped on top of him, which seemed like a good idea

300. at the time until we heard...

301. all the steel crashing around us.

302. Mayday, mayday.

303. And, for a couple of seconds,

304. I wondered if I was dead or alive.

305. Control, where are you?

306. Over.

307. We need help!

308. This way.

309. Help, help.

310. That day, no matter how seasoned you are,

311. you had that in your head that you might die.

312. When this tower came down, it's the North Tower,

313. and I'm North, it's coming down on me.

314. I get back into the front, I put the ambulance into gear,

315. I say, "Come on, don't stall now,

316. I gotta get outta here."

317. I'm just trying to survive and I go and

318. I get to the emergency room.

319. I get to the emergency room

320. before the smoke hits there and I said,

321. "Close the doors, it happened again,

322. both towers are down.

323. They're coming down,

324. there's nothing but black smoke coming."

325. Let's go, we got to move.

326. And you hear them all saying,

327. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God."

328. How many people just died?

329. And I'm thinking, "I still don't know where Marvin is."

330. I come out of the emergency room and I said,

331. "I wanna get up to where the building's collapsed,"

332. because...

333. "Cause being a partner, like that,

334. and having that bond,

335. I couldn't work every day knowing that he died

336. and I would be blaming myself, because in the beginning,

337. we should've stuck together,

338. but I decided,

339. on my own,

340. that I was gonna do this, no matter what happens.

341. Not knowing what happened to Marvin made me go back.

342. And, as I'm getting closer and closer,

343. I'm hearing, like, slaps on the side of the ambulance

344. and people are having trouble breathing,

345. these are the people that were laying on the floor now.

346. And I take "em to the hospital

347. and I do this like, three to four times.

348. And I probably transport 16, 17 people

349. to the hospital that day.

350. And now, I'm only getting, like,

351. a block or two in, a policeman says,

352. "Don't go no further."

353. So I said, "Well, I gotta get up there,

354. I gotta get up there." I tell him, he says,

355. "Don't go no further because the pavement

356. is getting mushy and the subway's there,

357. the ambulance might go through the ground into the subway."

358. So, I say, "I'm gonna go."

359. Now it looks like hell and it's just black smoke and fire

360. And as I'm going up right to Broadway,

361. all of a sudden I see somebody and he's standing there

362. and he's got a phone and there's no-one else around

363. and I'm saying to myself, "Marvin?"

364. When the building was coming down,

365. I surely thought I was dead.

366. I'm standing there, in the middle of all this debris,

367. and I see what looks like strobe lights

368. and I'm, like, "Oh, this is my mind now playing tricks on me."

369. And then, all of a sudden, this vehicle stops and low and behold,

370. jumps out, it's Jimmie.

371. I put the ambulance in park and I ran towards him.

372. He ran towards me.

373. We hugged like we never saw each other before.

374. We're alive and we're alive together.

375. We didn't have time to cry,

376. we just embraced each other and said,

377. "Alright, we got a job to do.

378. Let's do it."

379. After the North Tower came down,

380. we were buried in about four feet worth of debris,

381. and I—I remember thinking,

382. "This can't be happening to me twice in one day."

383. When the fireman, uh, dug his way

384. out of the debris and stood up,

385. his immediate reaction was to assess the situation,

386. he says, "That steel beam is starting to buckle...

387. and if we don't get out of this room,

388. we're gonna die in this room."

389. We couldn't see outside anymore.

390. We was basically, stuck in this area

391. and I saw a little bit of light under a table...

392. and I crawled under the table...

393. and kind of, stuck my head out.

394. We were about ten feet above a floor,

395. covered with steel rebar, steel beams, concrete,

396. it was not a level...

397. it was a demolition field.

398. In the debris, he finds a rug.

399. He anchors it on the floor and he throws the rug over

400. the side of the building, and he says,

401. "This is the way out."

402. Actually, it wasn't a rug,

403. it was a piece of curtain and I said,

404. "Listen, go feet first, through the hole,

405. hold onto the curtain as long as you can,

406. and then you should, your feet should hit the beams or floor."

407. I honestly believe that,

408. if I was left to my own devices,

409. I'd still be...

410. I'd still have been on that, uh, third-floor landing, uh,

411. and I don't know whether I would've—would've survived.

412. I went down, then the fireman came down.

413. And the last thing I remember the fireman saying was,

414. "Keep moving west until you get to the Hudson River."

415. They'd set up a triage center at Ellis Island.

416. I want you to hold my hand,

417. come on board, get inside.

418. Anybody else, come on!

419. We got out into the middle of the river

420. and I looked back at the skyline of New York

421. and there were no World Trade Center there.

422. I turned to the guy who was driving the boat I said,

423. "Where are the World Trade Center?"

424. He said, "They're gone,

425. they collapsed down to their foundations."

426. And that was the first time,

427. I knew that, that is what happened.

428. The other thing I thought of, uh, was, uh...

429. My grandparents.

430. I had grown up in New York City,

431. but I had never been to Ellis Island, uh,

432. all four of my grandparents entered the United States

433. through Ellis Island and I wondered, uh,

434. whether... my grandparents...

435. Would, could ever have imagined...

436. that this would happen...

437. in the United States.

438. Anybody need some water?

439. After the collapse of the Towers,

440. we lost our command staff,

441. our chief department

442. and so many other staff chiefs.

443. They were all killed.

444. One of the most amazing stories from that day,

445. on how to re-establish command,

446. was done by Chief Hayden.

447. He got up on a burnt out fire truck

448. and those of us who survived started to gather

449. and Chief Hayden gave us an order,

450. it sounded pretty strange at the time,

451. he said...

452. "I want you to take off your helmets."

453. And we looked at him,

454. "We don't take off our helmets, this is who we are."

455. And—and the chief said,

456. "No, I want you to take off your helmets

457. and we're gonna have a moment of silence,

458. because we lost a lot of people today."

459. And as others came back to the site,

460. we were able to re-establish command,

461. to search and rescue people.

462. And then, I thought of my brother,

463. and even though I know he was there I looked at Engine 33,

464. the riding list, uh, in the truck,

465. I remember seeing, you know,

466. yes he was working that day,

467. I wasn't just imagining it, um...

468. I tried to call him on the radio,

469. "Battalion one to Engine 33, Battalion one to Engine 33."

470. And there was no answer.

471. Like so many units that day,

472. there was no answer when we called them.

473. We knew from earthquakes

474. people are found in all different pockets.

475. We figured, okay, maybe there is a pocket there,

476. where we'll find a bunch of people...

477. and I was hoping my brother would survive.

478. Emotionally I was a wreck.

479. The very frustrating and upsetting thing

480. was not knowing a-about Ruben, you know?

481. And, uh, my captain, uh,

482. Captain Lobe, uh, I wanted to go back out

483. and he wouldn't let me go back out.

484. So, he wanted me to go home and, uh...

485. I begged him... to stay.

486. Sorry.

487. I didn't know what I was gonna do.

488. I just didn't wanna leave.

489. The thing about losing Ruben and unfortunately,

490. we never found him, uh,

491. is he had a wife and daughters and, uh,

492. that bothered me

493. a lot that we never found him.

494. In the wake of 9/11,

495. I think the way I've led my life

496. in the past 20 years

497. has been different than the way I lived it before.

498. I have tried, in the last 20 years,

499. to spend more time with my family, uh,

500. I've tried to be

501. less, uh, obsessed

502. about my own personal career,

503. my— and my profession.

504. Have I been successful all of the time?

505. No.

506. My wife will tell you that

507. I still have the...

508. the same tendency but, uh,

509. I'm trying, um...

510. You know, when you stop and think about it,

511. isn't this what happened with, uh.

512. Uh...

513. Ebenezer Scrooge in, in A Christmas Carol?

514. After the events of that, uh,

515. famous Christmas Eve, uh,

516. he tried to reform his life, he tried to do better, uh.

517. Was he always successful?

518. Well, we don't know because Charles Dickens doesn't tell us, but,

519. I bet he wasn't always successful,

520. but I bet he was always trying.

521. As I thought about, uh...

522. my role in 9/11,

523. I—I realized that it was that fireman

524. who provided me with the leadership

525. to direct me out of that building

526. and that I could never, I would not have done it on my own.

527. I, Catherine Lucas Razzano.

528. Take you, Thomas Martin Rile.

529. Take you, Thomas Martin Rile.

530. To be my beloved husband.

531. To be my beloved husband.

532. I promise to be true to you.

533. I promise to be true to you.

534. All the days of my life.

535. All the days of my life.

536. Now that my parents are gone I—I have the two Borger girls,

537. who now are the head of the family.

538. I have one other, uh, person to remember and that's, Jeff Johnson,

539. the guy who, uh, led me

540. out of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

541. Thank you very much.

542. It was one of the happiest days of my life,

543. uh...

544. and my daughter has, uh...

545. had a wonderful marriage

546. and two beautiful children and...

547. Jeff, thank you, thank you for giving me that moment

548. and for giving me all the time I've had with her boys

549. and with my other grandchildren.

550. Thank you very much.

551. Captioned by Cotter Media Group.